Dear Folk,
In the 1950's how often would the bus station and train depot be located in the same building? On my layout I'd like to have the bus station located in the train depot, but wondered if this if very prototypical.
Thanks,
Mike
to the forum.
All I know is it wasn't like that in Baltimore, Pennsy and B&O had their own real estate and surrounding real estate. I expect they wouldn't want competition next door.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
In Orlando, Florida, in 2020, the SunRail and Amtrak trains stop in the Orange County (LYNX) bus depot, which is also served by Greyhound.
I know it was not like that in the 1950s.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
BigDaddy I expect they wouldn't want competition next door.
Oh, I don't know...
PRR_Hound by Edmund, on Flickr
Note the Marker Lamps and "Observation Car Railing" on the rear.
New York Central had a hand in Trailways, IIRC. B&O owned West Virginia Bus Lines, Union Pacific and Chicago & North Western the Overland Bus Lines.
I think railroads welcomed bus traffic and connecting buses were listed in timetables which acted as feeder-lines for train operations.
Cheers, Ed
gmpullman BigDaddy I expect they wouldn't want competition next door. Oh, I don't know... PRR_Hound by Edmund, on Flickr Note the Marker Lamps and "Observation Car Railing" on the rear. New York Central had a hand in Trailways, IIRC. B&O owned West Virginia Bus Lines, Union Pacific and Chicago & North Western the Overland Bus Lines. I think railroads welcomed bus traffic and connecting buses were listed in timetables which acted as feeder-lines for train operations. Cheers, Ed
To expand on this: the PRR owned 50 percent of Greyhound. Back home in Pittsburgh, the Greyhound station has been across the street from the PRR station since 1937. Greyhound is on the third building since then and the trains say Amtrak now, but they're both in the same location they've been for a century.
Part of the matter is that large bus lines weren't really a thing until the 30s at the absolute earliest. There weren't large terminals, per se, but more like a desk at a hotel lobby. This article https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/blog/western-pennsylvania-history/pittsburghs-streamline-deco-greyhound-bus-station is very Pittsburgh centric, of course, but provides a good case example.
A little more here, too.
http://streamlinermemories.info/?p=3785
http://www.chicagorailfan.com/greyrail.html
New York City's Greyhound station was across the street from Pennsylvania Station, too.
Greyhound_Bus_Terminal-34th_Street-_NYC... by Edmund, on Flickr
I've always wanted to have an excuse to have THIS on my layout somewhere. The old Cleveland Greyhound depot was sort-of similar, style-wise.
I'm sure you can find a lot of examples of bus and rail stations right beside each other, if not the same building. There are some natural connections between long-distance rail and local bus service. But less often the same building since not the same company.
But for a real example: Englehart, Ontario. The rail and bus service in this rural northern Ontario town were (rail service is now discontinued on this part of the line) by Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, and the station is both rail and bus station, as well as the railroad's dispatching and yard office.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/73683441@N07/10030892783
Same for Ontario Northland's North Bay rail/bus terminal (currently only bus service) and I believe buses also stop at ONTC's Cochrane train station as well, which does still see passenger service to the remote community of Moosonee which has no year-round road access, only rail.
A different sort of example; I went to university in Guelph, ON. The VIA Rail (former CN) station and Greyhound bus terminal were/are right next door to each other. Over the last few years, commuter rail service by GO Transit has been extended out from the Toronto area, and after a bunch of downtown street improvements the area around the rail/bus station was re-worked as an integrated transportation hub, with the main downtown transfer point for city buses, regional bus service from Greyhound and GO Transit, and regional and commuter rail from VIA Rail and GO Transit.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
I had a similar question I was going to ask. In small towns there usually isn't a bus terminal. Intercity buses would have a designated bus stop in these towns. Would it be a common practice for that to be at the town's railroad depot?
I would say more likely at the general store or drug store downtown. The bus would want to be more on the main drag, the depot wasn't necessarily near the center of town.
My thoughts would be in a major city a bus depot would be a "feeder", transporting people between smaller towns and the trunk line railroad. In a smaller town the bus line would be more of a competitor.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
This proves that if I don't open my mouth, I don't know that garbage will come out.
Hey I could run for politics
gmpullman I've always wanted to have an excuse to have THIS on my layout somewhere. The old Cleveland Greyhound depot was sort-of similar, style-wise. Cheers, Ed
I don't know what era you're in, but this was an idea I had for one of the Bachmann bus terminals on a modern era layout. Not sure I'll be able to work it into my layout.
(Pretty fantastic restaurant, if you want to take my word for it and not Eater.com's Restaurant of the Year 2017 and Time Magazine's Top 100 Best Places 2018)
That looks like a neat restaurant! I'm thinking of rearranging my Union Station area and I may look into incorporating a Hound Dog station.
I model mid-late '50s so the Walthers kit would work. Here's what the Cleveland Greyhound station looked like in the late '40s.
Cleveland_Greyhound by Edmund, on Flickr
dehusman I would say more likely at the general store or drug store downtown. The bus would want to be more on the main drag, the depot wasn't necessarily near the center of town. My thoughts would be in a major city a bus depot would be a "feeder", transporting people between smaller towns and the trunk line railroad. In a smaller town the bus line would be more of a competitor.
I was thinking about this for a town on my layout which I would describe as mid-sized. The depot is on one side of the main drag and the business district is on the other. I have a number of CMW Greyhound busses from the mid 1950s. I have a large bus terminal in my main city near the railroad station. I have a couple extra busses that I could distribute as scenic features elsewhere on the layout and I was wondering if it would make sense for the bus to make its stop in the parking lot of the depot. It really would be the only convenient parking place for the bus on the main drag. On the business district side, all the parking spaces have meters. A bus stop would take up at least two of these.
gmpullman That looks like a neat restaurant! I'm thinking of rearranging my Union Station area and I may look into incorporating a Hound Dog station. I model mid-late '50s so the Walthers kit would work. Here's what the Cleveland Greyhound station looked like in the late '40s. Cleveland_Greyhound by Edmund, on Flickr Cheers, Ed
I model 1956 and I've done the same using the Walthers Silver Springs kit and it looks great. Greyhound and Trailways busses share the terminal. CMW 1950s busses fit right in. I put it less than a block from my main railroad station, Walthers Union Station kit which is based on the Burlington Station in Omaha. Easy walking distance for anyone wanting to move from one to the other unless of course they had lots of luggage.
A few years ago I took the Amtrak from Portland to Chicago and then transferred to the bus station since Amtrak no longer goes through Columbus, Oh. The bus station was a short cab ride away. Unfortunately because of the delays in North Dakota, we got into Chicago about four hours later. I still could have caught the last bus leaving that night but the railroad misplaced my checked bag and that delay caused me to miss the bus. I spent the night in the bus station. The strange mix of people reminded me of the bar scene in Star Wars.
The Kemper Street Station in Lynchburg Virginia has a bus station on the upper (street) level and the Amtrak station below on the track level. This was originally the Southern Railway station. Not sure if the bus station was there back in the 50s.
What size town?
In New Brunswick NJ for example the bus stop (no terminal per se)
is across the street from the train station.
Joe Staten Island West
In the 1950's, it would be rare if ever that a railroad station would also be used by a bus company, unless they were both owned by the same company or otherwise connected somehow. Some railroads, when they ended passenger service on say a branch line, would contract with a bus company to carry passengers from their nearest railroad station to the city or cities on the branch.
NittanyLion gmpullman I've always wanted to have an excuse to have THIS on my layout somewhere. The old Cleveland Greyhound depot was sort-of similar, style-wise. Cheers, Ed I don't know what era you're in, but this was an idea I had for one of the Bachmann bus terminals on a modern era layout. Not sure I'll be able to work it into my layout. (Pretty fantastic restaurant, if you want to take my word for it and not Eater.com's Restaurant of the Year 2017 and Time Magazine's Top 100 Best Places 2018)
Actually If I really wanted to build a bus terminal I would do the central bus station in Tel Aviv Israel in the 1970's Now that was a lively place! Basically an outdoor flea market with buses.
The '50s would likely be a time when prohibitions against railroads owning long-distance bus lines were at a height. We might therefore distinguish space for 'long-distance' buses ... or more regional service in competition with a given railroad's local service ... as different from that of transit buses or regional feeders.
The latter would be further constrained by some need for the railroad to get meaningful 'rent' for any co-located facilities ... probably to show some reasonable profit. But there were certainly railroads which valued passenger service in that era that would optimize transfers -- look, for example, to see what the New Haven did to coordinate operations with the Connecticut Company over the years of heavy ICC regulation.
In this context we might also consider co-location of something that is an alternative to bus service: car-rental location. In this, New Haven was an acknowledged pioneer, and it might be interesting to model this far-superior alternative to last-mile transit buses or taxis both as New Haven arranged it and as other railroads or companies might.